Which is a little play on words on that legendary blues
piece, most notably and hauntingly played by…… (figure it out)
Anyway the weekend is over and while I don’t have a lot to
offer I do have some off the wall ramblings when there isn't any foodie news to speak of..
Worst hour(s) of the day
As I sit down to write this it (was) approaching what I consider
to be one of the worst hours of the day:
the hour (that seems to take days) between five and six. And I don’t care which letter comes before
the “m”, both are awful. Chronologically
we’ll start with the “a” portion.
I’m sure you don’t have this problem, being healthy well
adjusted people. My night is usually
fitful at best, with demons (I’m sure they are related to the ones who inhabit
the light at Millstone/235) flying through my brain, magnifying any little
nagging concern into a life altering fear.
To ward them off somewhat I have a little battery powered radio with a
pillow speaker that I listen to.
Programming ranges from talk shows like “Coast to Coast AM” , rife with
conspiracy theorists, alien abductees, reincarnation folk, and so on. They still hotly debate things like Roswell,
and the Kennedy assassination. Some are
entertaining, some not. Other choices
are sports talk shows, reliable old WTOP, and very occasionally music. The vagaries of reception sometimes force the
selection. Anyway, at five o’clock in
the morning, “live” programming ceases: one of the local sports stations goes
into an hour of the “Sports Junkies” that was recorded anywhere from two weeks
to two years ago, and if it isn’t live I don’t listen. Or our ESPN radio continues with its “Sports
Center All Night” which is a compendium of sound bites from all the sports
centers, which they repeat over and over.
Ditto don’t listen. WTOP, which
stays live, gets repetitive. So there I am
half awake, nothing to divert my attention, and these days to make matters
worse, the rising sun begins to pound on the windows of the digs. After an eternity, six o’clock comes along
and things go back to “live” broadcasting.
At that point I suffer maybe twenty minutes of “Mike and Mike” the pair
on ESPN who talk about (depending on season) the last NFL/NBA game, and manage
take longer to yak about it that it takes to play the game. Plus Golic is a high priest of Notre Dame. Golf?
Baseball? Hockey? They may get a mention if there was a fight
or bad call.
Whew, I got carried away there! Sorry.
Okay that’s why I hate 5 to 6 in the morning.
Five to six in the evening is much simpler. Our evening cocktail hour begins at six or a
bit later, and although “it is five o’clock somewhere” is famous, it does push
it a bit for us. So I spend that hour
developing a thirst and clock watching.
Five o’clock News is usually kind of vapid, saving the “best” news for
six, and don’t get me started on that buffoon Pat Collins..
So there you have my nomination for the worst hour(s) of the
day.
Music in the Sky (?)
The other night, after
six o’clock, we were enjoying cocktails on the back porch when I gazed across
the water and over the Solomons appeared this cloud formation (I think aided by
contrails – or maybe “chemtrails” for those midnight radio folk).
If you don't think to hard, does it not remind you a little bit of a Treble Clef? If it does not, have a cocktail and look
again.
Fliers of the Sky
I saw a posting on a bird listserv the other day about a
Peregrine Falcon who had built a nest under the Solomons Bridge and the possibility of a chick. Peregrines may be
slowly returning to this location. The
person who posted is a friend who suffers me to help him bird occasionally, and
he was kind enough to give me directions on finding the nest on the northern
side of the bridge, nearer Calvert County.
So Sunday I loaded up my scope, bins, camera in the back of the MOMSTER
II and headed across the bridge. Local
folk will know that on the Solomons side under the foot of the bridge, there is
a boat launch facility, largely used by fishermen. It being Sunday afternoon in Rockfish season,
the parking lot was pretty full of pickups with trailers, some who already
launched and others who were waiting with their boats on trailers in the “staging
area”. The parking there is geared
toward those vehicles and in fact the huge majority or parking places are
marked with “Vehicles with Trailers Only”.
There are a few that are not so marked, mostly under the bridge supports
where the rigs can’t fit. I had to take
a couple of turns around the lot, being very carefully monitored by the czar of
the boat launch since I had no trailer and was obviously not a member of the
clan. So finally I found a spot at the
far end of the lot where I felt law abiding enough to park. I wanted to do a recon of the area before
getting out the scope, so I put the binoculars around my neck and took off for
the vantage point. Well, that meant I had
to parade past all the fishermen waiting to launch their boats. Most were hard core fishing boats, bristling
with rods with those fluorescent green things, you’ve seen them. The captains of the vessels were sort of
hanging together, some smoking and telling fish stories, a lot with cami
clothing on, their war torn ball caps, real men of the sea (well, river). So here was this guy with shorts and black
socks, binoculars around his neck parading by.
Have you ever felt stares burning into you? Anyway I nonchalantly went to a little by
the foot of the bridge, scanned the bridge and found the nest, but couldn’t
discern any occupants. Okay, time for
(sigh) the scope.. back through the
gauntlet, get out the scope, parade by
the speechless anglers again.
I finally set up an observation site near a picnic table
and trained the scope on the nest, and really couldn’t see anybody home. I spent about 20 minutes waiting to see
movement, and nothing. Eventually I saw
a little “lump” just outside the nest, near one of the supports, but the wind
was such that it caused the scope to jitter at high magnification so I couldn’t
get a real good look. Finally I decided
it wasn’t alive as it didn’t move. At
that point I gave up, and went back again to the car for the camera. I have a loaner 100 – 400mm big
boy lens so thought I would try a shot. One more time
past the boys, this time with a very expensive looking lens and camera. I was glad I couldn’t hear any conversation. I took a couple of documentation shots of the
nest, went through the gauntlet for the last time and came home.
Much to my surprise, when I downloaded the images and “zoomed”
in, the “lump” was not where I saw it first by the support right by the nest, but was further under the bridge (to the left of the pipe, you might have to look hard).
So although it still isn’t clear, it could be the little
Peregrine, whom I shall now call “Lumpy”. We'll keep and eye out for them
Another Passing
Although I did not know him I just heard that “Charlie” of
Charlie’s Deli has served his last customer and passed recently. Too Bad.
Another reason to be
DFD
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